Princess Alexandra Hospital: Data at the heart of patient care
Applying data and insights to improve hospital services
How is data-driven decision-making improving services for hospital patients?
All over the NHS, healthcare professionals are telling us the same thing: it’s time for a cohesive approach to technology and digitisation.
Technology and advanced data analytics are helping hospital trusts to build the NHS of the future.
In challenging economic circumstances, with competing priorities and high demand for services, solutions that empower hospital staff to deliver more from their resources must be a good thing.
Essex-based Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) is striving to be one of the country’s most technologically advanced hospitals. Working alongside its people, a team from Deloitte has helped develop the hospital’s approach to data.
Now PAH has a single source of truth, that updates in real time, offering deep insights hospital staff can apply to services, to make them more efficient and effective.
Ultimately, that means better outcomes and a better experience for patients.
For PAH’s teams, data is transforming results across the areas that matter most – patients, NHS people, performance and pounds
“Hospitals collect a lot of data,” says PAH’s Chief Information Officer, Phil Holland.
“Our ambition (in 2021) was to get better at playing the hospital’s intelligence back to the organisation, so we could provide more insightful commentary about our services and make evidence-based decisions.”
Working together with PAH, Deloitte explored the skills, technology and strategy to achieve its ambition. When implementing the strategy, specialists from Deloitte developed and embedded a suite of bespoke insight applications tools and systems, while building skills and experience within PAH.
Overall, the approach has increased the range of data source in the hospital, bringing them together into a cohesive system. What was once siloed and difficult to curate is now dynamic, single source of truth that’s enabling PAH to re-imagine how it runs its clinical and support services.
At a strategic level, advanced analytics applied over a longer time period create more robust insights. And, far from being solely a technical project, it’s brought teams from across the hospital together around new ways of working.
A data-rich organisation
“Today, we have an organisation that’s data rich,” Phil continues. “One important benefit is efficiency, but even more important is better patient care.
“Understanding more about our pressure points and how patients move through our services helps our people to give them better treatment.”
Practically, clinicians can more clearly understand what’s happening day-to-day in their clinics than they could before, booking processes have been improved using analytics and support staff can save time by automating communications.
As clinicians and back-office functions continue to find new uses for their data, insight is also providing greater levels of assurance for PAH Trust leaders, who are responsible for delivering safe services.
“Applying expertise in areas from advanced statistical analysis to predictive modelling has helped simplify critical processes for hospital staff,” says Tony King, a partner at Deloitte.
“We’re especially proud of the way data and insight is empowering PAH’s people and has become an enabler for the Trust’s strategic priorities.”
We are now shifting towards a data-driven culture and seeing the benefits this brings.
Phil Holland, Trust Chief Information Officer, Princess Alexandra Hospital
Improved access to better, safer services
So, what exactly can data do? Here are three examples of how it’s helping to transform services at PAH.
Tackling unnecessary attendance
Geospatial analysis is helping the hospital to identify instances where boroughs and primary care providers are referring patients to hospital unnecessarily.
In practice, data is collected systematically to show the level of care each patient needs, for example whether they needed an X-ray, ECG or didn’t need hospital care at all. Analysing this information can help paint a picture of populations and area-based need. It creates opportunities for the Trust to work with system stakeholders to develop services that may be more appropriate for those patient cohorts and communities.
Such a detailed overview also helps the hospital to better understand the pathways patients take, and the quality of its triage assessments.
Scheduling theatre time
Data science and visualisation techniques are providing operational and clinical teams with predictions on future levels of theatre use, so they can better plan theatre schedules.
Planning now takes account of multiple factors, for example how long specific surgeons are likely to spend in theatre for a given procedure, enabling better, more consistent treatment for patients.
“The theatres are the most expensive resource in a hospital, so it’s important they’re used really effectively,” says Phil. “This has made a huge difference in terms of how we run our theatres and our care delivery.” This reflected in a seven per cent uplift in theatre utilisation over the course of six months, supporting a reduction in patient waiting times.
Optimal emergency care
Data is also helping the department to predict attendance trends and plan for peaks. It includes a solution that provides data from the emergency department every 10 minutes, including waiting times, the best next action for patients and patient profiles.
Tools for a digital era
Using insight to improve patient care is an integral part of a cultural shift taking place at PAH, that embraces today’s digital possibilities.
It goes without saying that successful digital tools and approaches must be tailored to meet the needs of the people using them. Principles guiding the PAH systems include:
Workable, intuitive solutions
A focus on solutions that are practical, which staff can use easily and quickly. This includes data visualisations that look good and are easy to understand and tech that can make manual or more laborious tasks quicker and easier.
A single source of data that updates in real time
It was essential to create one up-to-date, clear source and approach to remove duplication, make the best use of resources and create confidence and trust in the data.
Opening up the data to educate and empower people
Rather than keeping data in siloes, PAH is enabling people to use and understand it so more people can realise its value.
Future proofing and joining up
Part of a shift happening across the NHS, using technology to support staff and patients, PAH’s work will feed into future plans including embedding an NHS-wide electronic patient record system. The approach has been shared with other Trusts too, to support learning.
“We’ve really enjoyed working with the PAH team on this project,” concludes Tony.
“It’s a great example of how NHS organisations and external partners can come together to combine skills and use technology and data to drive excellence for patients.”
Get in touch:
Joe Johnson
Director, Risk Advisory
[email protected]
+44 (0)121 695 5225
Tony King
Health Analytics Partner
[email protected]
+44 (0)121 695 5971
